Issue Date

Author

Publisher

Type

Article Version

Metadata

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most pressing social and environmental issues of the 21st century, and will require
innovative thinking to understand its complexity. The Paris Agreement, negotiated at the 2015 21st Conference of Parties,
marked a monumental international agreement toward collective action on climate change. Through world systems
theory and global value chain analysis, this paper explores how climate knowledge is co-constructed, differentially distributed,
and consistently negotiated in the frontiers among diverse knowledge systems. These theoretical frameworks allow us to
explore how power is manifest in knowledge systems. I argue that this theoretical approach may more broadly acknowledge
the role that organizations play when navigating the complex field of climate change. World system theory and global value
chains is used to understand the multi-scalar nature of Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation
(REDD+) programs. In doing so, a new framework is proposed for grasping the complex nature of climate knowledge,
governance, and policy implementation